The First Year Auditions for the Inaugural Year of the USA Cheerleaders Texas Division

Dallas, Texas— USA Cheerleaders, a national organization committed to supporting the United States military, veterans and their families, will launch the Texas Division with open auditions on Sunday, January 31. This is the inaugural year for the Texas Division, headed by Former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader and NY Jets cheerleader, Jessica Kalil, who cheered for the USA Cheerleaders New York Division before moving to Texas.

The one-day auditions will be held at the Power House of Dance on Inwood Road on Sunday, January 31. The auditions are an opportunity for anyone who meets the requirements (see below) to cheer for the first year USA Cheerleaders Texas Division.

“USA Cheerleaders is an incredible group of women that give back to our service members,” said Kalil. “Not only will the team perform for military, veterans and their families in Texas, they will also assist in fundraising, writing letters and preparing care packages for our heroes.”

The USA Cheerleaders are a dedicated group of professional cheerleaders with steadfast respect for the service men and women, veterans, their families and the United States. USA Cheerleaders honor American heroes, past, present and future with a determined sense of patriotic duty.

ABOUT THE USA CHEERLEADERS TEXAS DIVISION OPEN AUDITIONS

WHAT: One-day audition where candidates will perform a short freestyle dance before learning a dance routine and performing in front of a panel of judges. Visit facebook.com/USACheerleadersTexasDivision for more details.

BGC, a subsidiary of Cantor Fitzgerald, lost 658 employees on 9-11. CEO Howard Lutnick started Charity Day to commemorate those who were lost on September 11, 2001 by reaching out to help others. On this day BGC’s revenues are distributed to over 75 charities around the world, including the Wounded Warrior Project (WWP). This is the second year that the USA Cheerleaders were invited to this prestigious event.

USA Cheerleaders Danielle, Jackie and Cindy with President Clinton

This year three members of the USA Cheerleaders attended the event and each one took a trade call and they raised over $355,000 to help with the final tally of the day. This year the total tally raised for the day was over twelve million dollars. Many Hollywood and sporting legends were involved along with a royal and two former Presidents. Attendees included: President George W. Bush, President Bill Clinton, Prince Harry, Daniel Radcliffe, Bethany Hamilton (Soul Surfer), Anna Sophia (Soul Surfer), Ben Stiller, Jon Voigt, Carol Alt, Nigel Barker, Billy Crudup, Kim Kardashian, Elizabeth Vargas (ABC News), Eli Manning, Mark Sanchez and many more. The Jets Flight Crew and the Knicks City Dancers stopped by as well.

The USA Cheerleaders arrived at 7:30 am to begin the day with a ceremony to Honor and Remember all the victims of 9-11. Howard Lutnick spoke about the loss of his employees as well as the loss of his best friend and brother that day. A prayer was given and the day was to begin at 8:00 am. The Cheeerleaders spent the day with the WWP and the warriors and also went around the offices which took up 2 floors and visited all the brokers as they went on to field all the calls coming in. They took some phone calls as well as watched the celebrities on hand take phone calls and make trades.

Ken Martin’s USA Cheerleaders are holding tryout in NYC. The tryouts will be held at one of their Wounded Warrior Project Appearances in conjunction with it. The WWP is the reason a team is being added for New York City.adding a team in NYC. Only a small number of girls will be accepted for the tryouts that will take place on Pier 66, the same location that the Heroes on the Hudson event will be taking place that day.

Heroes on the Hudson will be bringing Wounded Warriors from Walter Reed, Bethesda and Ft. Drum to take part in kayaking, canoeing, sailing and more water sports.

I wanted to touch base with you and let you know about an event we were privileged to be invited too on New Years Eve. We were invited to celebrate New Years Eve with the Wounded Warrior Project, over 150 Wounded Warriors, their families and the NYPD.

We met at Ft. Harrison where we were put up at the Army Lodge for the night. We checked in and the girls got ready for the night. I only took 8 girls because we only had 2 rooms, the rest of the lodge was full of the Wounded Warriors. We left about 4:00 to drive over to Mt. Carmel Church, were we were going to meet the Wounded Warriors and their families as they were coming into the church for their catered dinner. There was a catered dinner for everyone, the Friars Club did a comedy show and then the girls performed a Christmas dance and our Bon Jovi dance (Special Request from a Warrior)

After dinner we boarded Four NYPD buses, 2 WWP Vans and 2 other Mini Buses. We then went by NYPD Motorcade to Times Square. The motorcade had over 60 NYPD officers and was amazing!!! The closed down the FDR and the last time they did that was for President Obama, we felt privileged to be apart of it!! We arrived into Times Square about 9:45 pm and entered the VIP area which was reserved for the WWP. The VIP area was under the Ball, next to the Entertainment stage where Ryan Seacrest was doing his show. The Medal of Honor winner Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta even stopped by to pose for some pictures with a few warriors!!!

It was truly an Honor to be invited to this event and we have been the only cheerleading program ever invited to such an event. Spending New Years with the warriors was very humbling and I cant wait to do it again next year, because we have already been asked to return for next year and then we will be putting on our Variety Show at the dinner complete with costume changes, comedy skit, audience participation and more!!!

I am attaching a picture for you in case you want to see how much fun we had and there are a lot more on our FB page!!

I got this email from Ken Martin founder of the USA Cheerleaders and longtime friend of the site:

Hi Everyone,

This is Ken Martin and I am the Executive Director of the USA Cheerleaders. I started this program to Support our Troops over 5 years ago and over those years I have had the chance to meet many of our Troops from Active Duty to Retired Vets to our Wounded Warriors.

Recently an event happened, that has opened my eyes to life in general and it has made me do a lot of soul searching and made me look at what I have been doing with my life.

The word Support can mean so many things to many different people and it is how we decide to Support whatever it is that mean something to you in your life.

Well our Troops are who I Support and I am 100% committed to supporting them. Now I can sit back and Support them from home, my computer, and so on, but I choose not to for I would much rather be on the front lines showing that I support them whole heartedly.

I recently met a 25 year old veteran who fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Meeting him help put many things in my life in prospective. He came to be homeless over 2 months ago and it was through no fault of his own. After serving his country he came to the Metro area to put down some roots and he starting working and found a place to live.

A couple months ago, there was a knock on his front door and when he opened it, he was handed some paperwork and was told he had to vacate the property immediately because the house was being foreclosed. He paid his rent on time every month but the owners did not pay their mortgage and thus the foreclosure. He had no other choice but to leave and the only option to him was to live in his car. @ days prior he had paid his rent to the landlords and he did not have the money to rent another place because everyone want a security deposit plus one or two months rent in advance and he simply could not afford it.

I won’t go into too much detail right now but my conversation with him came to him asking me if I would spend a night or two with him to see what and how he has been living, basically for me to see for myself instead of the questions.

Well the more I thought about it, I could only come to one conclusion. I decided to not only spend a night seeing how he lived. I am going to spend a month or more out there seeing what he has been going through and meeting the people he has been telling me about and hopefully making a major change in his life, mine and hopefully many more as well.

This decision came very easy for me. I can’t believe in this day and age that we as Americans can treat our Veterans in this way, plus how we treat our citizens who have came upon hard times in this economy.

We have helped so my other nations and their citizens, who need the help, like Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and so many others. How is it that we cannot help our own US Citizens who need our help? They are in dire need of help and we need to change how and who we help!

Who am I to think I can change the way we do things? I am nobody important, but I know what I care about and that is our Troops and the American people and our Way of Life!!!

If I can help one person from my experience that it was well worth doing!!!

I am going to be making a video diary of my experiences so you can see first hand what I see. I will ask people that I meet in my journeys if I can interview them for the video but, they must have to want to do it and I can’t force anyone, because I know some people do not want their name or face shown because it is am embarrassing situation to be in for many.

I will talk with John, the 25 year old vet and hopefully I can get him to tell all of you about his journey and how much his life has changed.

I am really excited to be doing this and I can’t even begin to tell you how I feel about this, because for some reason, it was meant to be. The only thing that is changing in my life, is my start and end of the day, where I wake up and where I sleep. Of course there will be other challenges along the way but I will deal with those as they happen.

I hope that all of you will come along the journey with me and hopefully together we can change a life or two. If we can’t rely on our Government too help, then we must take matters into our own hands and help our citizens who need our help!!!

Thank you for taking the time to read my note and about my journey into the unknown. Please feel free to email me your thoughts, your questions, or to just drop me a note because I would love to hear from you. Email me at: ken@cheerleading-usa.com

Four Cheerleaders were at the event from 9:00 am to 4:00 pm. Each Cheerleader took a phone call and closed a deal. The total of the four phone calls was $328,000, the largest USA Cheerleaders have ever done for a charity.